Antonin Scalia Quotes

As judges we are neither Jew nor gentile, neither Catholic nor agnostic …. As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them.

I do not believe there are any circumstances in which a judge should consider his or her own values or policy preferences in determining what the law means.

Judicial abuse occurs when judges substitute their own political views for the law.

If a judge does his job right, you [the observer] will never know how he personally feels about the policies he may have to rule on.

As a member of this court I am not justified in writing my private notions of policy into the Constitution, no matter how deeply I may cherish them.

The judge may not … express his … personal beliefs ... as to what is right or just

It's simply not bias for a judge to explain her reasoning in a dissent.

In the legislative branch, you make the laws... and our role as judges is to interpret the law, not to inject our own policy preferences. So our task is to give an honest construction to what laws are passed by the Legislature.

Judges should always behave judicially by adjudicating, never politically by legislating. I leave policy to policymakers. They're preeminent, but they're not omnipotent. In other words, lawmakers decide if laws pass, but judges decide if laws pass muster.

There is a profound difference between an activist judge and an engaged judge.

My personal opinions on any subject are really not relevant, not important, and to the extent that I might inject them, I am acting improperly as either a District Court judge or as an appellate court judge.

The worst thing you want is a willy-nilly judge who is swayed by the political whims of the era or the time. What you want is a judge who is thinking about what he or she is doing and is thinking about it in a principled way.

Judges need to restrict themselves to the proper resolution of the case before them. They need to avoid the temptation to set broad policy.

No matter how badly senators want to know things, judicial nominees are limited in what they may discuss. That limitation is real, and it comes from the very nature of what judges do.

At least there's a political input, but when you put on the robe, at that point the politics is over.

I respect people who feel things passionately. I do. But when someone is a judge, that is not what they should bring to the bench. It is not really passion, except in rare instances, that serves the bench well. It is, rather, an ability to understand the law and follow it.

The judiciary must not take on the coloration of whatever may be popular at the moment. We are guardian of rights, and we have to tell people things they often do not like to hear.

All judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial.

Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

If the country comes to believe that judges are politicians in robes no end of difficulty will come from that.

In the last four years the sound rule of giving statutes the benefit of all reasonable doubt has been cast aside. The Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body…. Judges who will bring to the Courts a present-day sense of the Constitution - Judges who will retain in the Courts the judicial functions of a court, and reject the legislative powers which the courts have today assumed.

It's important not to get into the business of characterizing judges based on one decision they make

Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.

There are judges who stretch the law...to suit reactionary attitudes.

As a judge, it is not my function to develop public policy.